


For Something Like a Second

by 27dragons



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, I honestly can't believe I did this, M/M, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Romance, another square for my trope bingo i guess, but really it's just an excuse for the porn, ill-advised battle plans, ill-advised liaisons, offscreen canon Gamora/Tony, okay there's like a teaspoon's worth of plot, stolen from the comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 04:47:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12161832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons
Summary: Tony's really enjoying his tour with the Guardians of the Galaxy, especially since Peter's about as nontraditional an Alpha as Tony's ever encountered.That's good, because Omega pheromone/heat suppressants are pretty hard to come by out here in space.





	For Something Like a Second

**Author's Note:**

> See the endnotes for my particular take on A/B/O.

_So I knelt there at the delta,_  
_At the alpha and the omega,_  
_I knelt there like one who believes._  
_And like a blessing come from heaven,_  
_For something like a second,_  
_I was cured and my heart was at ease._  
\-- “Light as the Breeze”, Leonard Cohen

 

Tony loved space.

Portals still gave him the wobblies -- they’d found out right away that he couldn’t be on the bridge of the _Milano_ when they jumped -- but _space_. Space was _awesome_.

Even the Spartax who’d kidnapped them briefly before Groot rescued them all had been kind of cool, in that they’d given him a universal (well, galactic) translator before dumping him into stasis. God, the tech. The _tech_! Rocket was a little bit of an asshole about Earth’s comparative primitive conditions, which Tony could absolutely do without, but he’d fixed Tony’s shattered armor while bitching about it, so there was a limit to how far Tony wanted to kick him.

Also? Aliens. Mother. Fucking. _Aliens_. They had those on Earth, of course -- most of the Asgardians were pretty cool, and apparently now there was something called the Kree -- but everywhere they went in space, _everyone_ was an alien. Tony and Peter were the only humans out here. And Peter was only _half_ human, at that.

Tony was still wrapping his head around the fact that most of the aliens they met didn’t have presentations. Most of them had sexes -- asexual reproduction was apparently _really_ rare among sentient species -- but Tony had no idea how sex even _worked_ if they didn’t have presentations. How were you supposed to know when your partner was fertile if they didn’t have a heat? And how would a species even survive long enough to evolve without an Alpha’s protective instincts or an Omega’s calming influence? And how did they evolve at all without Alpha-Omega offspring bias? It was just weird.

But the very best thing about space? Was that green-skinned alien women were actually a thing that existed. Tony was going to get to scratch that decades-old item off his bucket list.

And even if Gamora didn’t present an Alpha scent, she sure as hell had Alpha behavior down. Not like Peter, who actually _was_ an Alpha, but acted as cool and easygoing as a Beta. Maybe it was because there weren’t any other presenting Alphas to worry about. The _Milano_ was _drenched_ in Peter’s scent; Tony’d had to up his suppressant dosage to deal with it, and he was still caught every so often with that urge to show his throat, just a little.

Or maybe it was because Peter had been raised out here, where there wasn’t any presentationist nonsense. Tony wished he could show Peter to some of those Alpha apologists back home. Sure biology mattered, but not nearly as much as lots of people thought.

_Anyway_ , biology mattered a lot less with the advent of modern medicine. Tony gulped down another tiny suppressant tablet with his drink and leaned in to lay the charm on Gamora, who had been watching him all night with affected disdain and cool amusement. Tony could work with that; he’d sealed the deal with less.

If there was one thing Tony was good at, it was sex.

***

_A few hours later_

“So, I’m going back to the bar,” Gamora said. She slid out of the bed and padded toward the bathroom.

“Yeah, okay,” Tony said, squeezing it in just before the door closed behind her. His voice didn’t shake. He was very proud of that.

He listened as she washed and got dressed again and left the little room she’d rented to use while they were planetside.

“Ow,” he told the ceiling.

The door opened, and Tony nearly flinched. God, he hoped she hadn’t changed her mind and come back for round two. Maybe she’d just forgotten her credchip or something.

“Oh, man, she really did a number on you, didn’t she?” Peter came farther into the room so that Tony could see him without having to move. “She does this all the time. I should’a warned you, huh?”

“I probably wouldn’t have listened,” Tony admitted weakly. “No way was I turning down the chance to be Captain Kirk.”

“Oh, hey, I got that one,” Peter said, pleased. He sat on the edge of the bed, and Tony whimpered a little at the movement. “If it makes you feel any better, you lasted longer than the usual sucker.”

“Did you and she ever--?”

“Sure,” Peter said easily. “I mean, we were friends first, so for a long time, it was this unspoken thing between us. But eventually we got there. And then it turned out we probably should’ve just stayed friends.”

“How’d you fare?”

Peter shrugged. “Eh, I’m stubborn. Ask me about the Aaskavarian girl sometime.” He held out a hand that Tony eyed suspiciously. “Come on,” Peter said. “Best thing to do is get up and get moving. It’ll help.”

“Or,” Tony countered, “I could just lie here and whimper for a while longer.”

“Come on, you big baby,” Peter said, grinning, not retracting his hand. “You’re gonna love this.”

***

Peter had rented a pair of skimmers -- the space equivalent of the bicycle, Tony guessed. They couldn’t go very far and weren’t jump-capable, but you could get from the planet to one of the lower moons, and if you had a decent grasp of gravitational math -- which Tony _did_ , thanks very much -- you could slingshot all the way around the moon and turn the little vehicles into racers.

Tony’s math was better than Peter’s, but Peter had more experience, so they’d run nearly neck-and-neck for three full loops. Tony hadn’t had this much fun since the first time he’d taken the Iron Man armor out for a flight.

When they finally docked the skimmers back at the rental shop, most of the remaining aches and pains had faded under an onslaught of adrenaline and endorphins. “Okay,” Tony admitted, “that was worth pushing through the pain.”

Peter pointed the way back toward the bar. “C’mon, I’ll buy you a round and you can tell everyone that you _almost_ managed to beat the best pilot in the quadrant.”

Tony made big, round eyes at Peter. “But Rocket wasn’t even flying!”

Peter stumbled a few steps, hand pressed to his chest clownishly. “Wounded!” he cried. “Betrayed!”

Tony was laughing too hard to respond as they entered the bar.

“Right in the back!” Peter protested, half-falling across the bar.

“Your back does not appear to be damaged,” Drax said.

“I am Groot?”

“What’s going on,” Rocket said, “is that these two numbskulls seem to have finally stopped dancing around each other and are going to leave us in peace for a change.”

“Peter!” Drax said happily. “You have finally found someone with whom to copulate!”

“Uh, _no_ ,” Peter said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “No, that’s not what--” Drax had already pushed into the crowd, presumably to find Gamora and tell her the “news”. Peter turned disbelieving eyes on Rocket, “Seriously, why would you do that to me, man?”

“Because you Earthers are funny as hell when you’re embarrassed,” Rocket said. “C’mon, Groot, let’s go catch some shuteye.”

“I am Groot.”

“I _know_ you don’t actually sleep, that’s not what I...” Their voices faded until they’d blended into the general noise of the bar.

Peter put his hand over his face. “I’m sorry,” he said to Tony. “I don’t know why all my friends are assholes. I swear I didn’t have any designs on you. Don’t. Didn’t. Uh.”

Tony was having a hard time keeping the smile off his face. “That’s sort of a shame,” he said.

“What?” Peter stared at him. “I mean, I don’t _not_ have designs. I _could_ have some designs, if you were open to that sort of--”

“Peter.” It was actually kind of adorable. Tony didn’t think he’d ever seen an Alpha this flustered before. “Deep breath. Start over.”

“Yeah, I can--” Peter visibly got himself under control. “You want to go out with me? Like, on a date?”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “I think I do.”

***

Peter was nervous as he ushered Tony into the little skimmer, babbling much more than usual.

“You know it’s still just me, here, right?” Tony said, strapping into the copilot’s seat.

“Yeah, but it’s still different,” Peter said. He shoved his fingers through his hair. “Look, I mean, we can _say_ if it doesn’t work out then we’ll still be friends, but you know and I know that it never really works out that way.”

“You and Gamora are still friends,” Tony pointed out.

Peter made a see-saw _sort of_ gesture in between flipping switches and undocking the skimmer. “There’s still some tension. And that was a long time ago! Anyway, I’m kind of hoping it works out for us. At least for a while.”

Tony couldn’t quite make himself stop watching the way Peter’s hands moved over the flight board. “I got the impression that you were a love-em-and-leave-em kind of guy,” he said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that; I’ve been there myself.” That wasn’t the sort of thing that Omegas usually admitted to. Not that most of Earth didn’t already know about Tony’s sexual history. Peter didn’t even glance sideways at him, just nodded acceptance, eyes on the low-orbit traffic. “What’s ‘for a while’ mean, just out of curiosity?” Tony continued. “This is a lot of effort for a one-night stand.”

“Nah,” Peter said. “Life out here, it’s not what you’d call stable, you know? And you’re gonna want to go back to Earth someday, I’m sure. But I’d like more than a night, anyway. I don’t get the chance to be with Terrans much, and I really like you. You’re fun. And you smell good. Shit, forget I said that, that was creepy. Right? Kinda creepy.”

“Only a little,” Tony said, on the edge of laughter. Though if Peter was noticing his scent already, he was going to have to step up the suppressants _again_. “You’re a very confusing man, you know.”

“Me?” They’d finally cleared the clutter of low orbit. Peter locked in a course and set the controls on autopilot before twisting in his seat to look at Tony. “I’m as simple as they come.”

Tony shook his head. “You’re not like any Alpha I’ve ever met. It’s hard to know how to play things, here.”

Peter shrugged. “I got taken from Earth when I was nine. I hadn’t even presented yet. I only even knew about the Alpha thing ‘cause of some stuff that went down the last time I was on Earth. It doesn’t really do anything for me, out here.” He eyed Tony speculatively. “I say, don’t play things. Just... let me get to know you.”

It was a good line, and not bad advice. Though Tony hardly knew who he was, anymore. Which mask had started out as the real man?

“So where are we going for this date?” he asked, to change the subject.

Peter didn’t call him on it. “It’s probably the most cliché first date in the entire galaxy,” he said, “but there’s this crystal forest on the second moon that’s really pretty, especially around planetset. I thought we’d have a picnic and enjoy the view.” He grimaced, obviously less pleased with the idea now that he’s said it aloud. “Is that-- I mean, we can always just--”

“It sounds nice,” Tony said, before Peter could trip over his own tongue any more. “Really. I don’t get nearly enough time to just... enjoy the moment.”

Peter relaxed a little. “Yeah? Okay. Okay, that’s... that’s good. It’ll be good.”

***

The trees didn’t really look like trees. More like very tall, pyramid-based bushes with impossibly smooth sides. They didn’t really look like crystals, either, except for the leaves, which looked like they’d been delicately crafted from green and blue glass.

Peter had been right about them being pretty, though; the whole forest of them together refracted the slightly silvery light of the local system’s sun and covered the ground with thousands of prisms. The light breeze whistled through the leaves and made them tinkle softly, like windchimes. And despite it being mid-morning, the planet was easily visible as it slipped below the horizon, continents and seas and clouds and even a couple of the bigger rivers.

Peter had brought a thick blanket for them to sit on, which was nice, because the pretty crystal leaves were very sharp where they’d fallen on the ground. He hadn’t been quite schmaltzy enough to bring finger-food so they could feed each other, but he _had_ packed takeout from Tony’s favorite spot. (It was only a few doors down from the bar/hotel where the Guardians were staying, so whether that was thoughtfulness or laziness, Tony wasn’t sure.) It was nice, though, stealing bites from each other’s plates and swapping stories while they watched the planetset.

Peter told some really outrageous stories about how he and the Guardians had met, and some of the crazy things they’d done together.

Tony talked about that time Natasha had posed as a lawyer and infiltrated his company, and the time he and Thor had thrown down in Germany, before Captain Starchypants had gotten into it.

Peter told Tony about his father, and what a psycho the guy had turned out to be, so it seemed only fair to tell Peter a little about Obie.

Peter’s memories of Earth were mostly happy, though, and that was good. He’d had a loving family and a pretty decent childhood, up until he’d been kidnapped by space pirates.

Tony didn’t want to talk about his childhood -- Obie had been enough of a moodkiller -- so he slid the conversation sideways into the TV and movies and music that Peter remembered. By the time the planet had completely set, the sun was high and they had finished the food, and everything was warm and sleepy. The conversation dwindled into a comfortable silence and Tony leaned back on his elbows and closed his eyes to listen to the wind in the trees.

Peter shifted beside him, blocking the sun. “Tony?”

Tony opened his eyes. Peter was even closer than he’d thought. “Yes?” he said. He had to hold back his smile; he knew what Peter wanted. He wanted it, too. But Peter was so damned cute when flustered.

Peter didn’t get flustered, though. He just smiled, like seeing Tony’s eyes was enough to make him happy. “Is it okay if I kiss you now?”

Well, it was about time. “Yes,” Tony said. “Yes, that is very okay.”

Peter leaned in closer, and Tony tipped his head, inviting.

The first brush of lips was only that, a light brush, barely enough to count as a kiss. As if Peter wasn’t certain that Tony wouldn’t object. As if he thought Tony might not even be real.

Another light brush, and then a firmer press, Peter’s slightly chapped lips and rough stubble were delicious friction, and even though Peter wasn’t even _touching_ him anywhere else, Tony shivered with anticipation.

“Okay?” Peter actually looked worried, as if he were worried that his kissing might not stack up.

“Very okay.” Tony caught the collar of Peter’s jacket and pulled him back in for more.

Peter touched him, finally, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him up against a muscled chest that belied Peter’s soft, easygoing style.

Tony was just wondering whether the blanket was thick enough to allow some rolling around when Peter’s communicator let out an obnoxious _blat_ sound.

“The hell!” Peter cursed, nearly dropping Tony in surprise. He scrambled for the device and thumbed it on. “You bastard, I told you--”

“Yeah, yeah, save it,” Rocket said. “We’ve got stuff to do.”

“Rocket, I swear to god...”

“Quill,” interrupted Gamora’s voice. “We’ve got the _Milano_ and we’re coming in hot. You and Tony need to be ready to board as soon as we hit the ground. There’s a Xykillian battlecruiser on system approach.”

***

The Xykillians clearly suffered from a species-wide case of penis envy; the battlecruiser was so big that Tony had trouble taking the whole thing in. It was bigger than whole cities -- hell, it might have been bigger than a couple of states.

“Well, at least they won’t be very maneuverable,” Tony said.

“I am Groot.”

“You got that right,” Rocket said. “Why would it need to be maneuverable when it’s got that many guns pointed in that many directions?”

“Is there a bounty, if we kill it?” Drax wondered.

Gamora waved the datapad she’d been working on. “Salvage rights. I’m negotiating with Planetary Defense, but they can’t authorize a bounty until the whole council is in agreement, and the representatives from Moon Four are holding out. They seem to think they’re not in the line of fire.”

“Are we seriously considering taking that thing on?” Tony demanded.

“Sure,” Peter said. He was busily slapping at the Milano’s controls. “Rocket, get on the computer and pull me up a vector path for the weapons.”

“I’m sorry, did you think that was going to result in anything but a giant blinking _YES_?”

“They’re not beams, which means they’ve got a rate of fire,” Peter snapped back. “Come on, we’re going to have to slide through somehow.”

“Quill, I admire your insanity,” Drax put in, “but approaching that vessel is a certain path to death for us all.”

“I am Groot.”

“I _know_ , but whoever designed this thing had a hard-on for weapons,” Rocket complained, paws dancing across his control screens. “Look at this pattern! There’s no way we’re getting through there, Quill. Think of something else.”

“If we had a big enough distraction,” Peter mused, watching Rocket’s screen thoughtfully, “it might work. Something to draw the fire from that lower bank.” He pointed.

Tony leaned in to study the bank.

Drax laughed uproariously. “That is suicide!”

“I agree,” Gamora said. “Who would be mad enough to do that?”

“I can do it,” Tony said.

“What?”

“What?”

“I am Groot?”

“ _What?_ ”

Tony shrugged. “You actually don’t want a _big_ distraction. You want a little one. A flea, too small to be noticed.”

“What good does _that_ do?” Rocket said. “You might be able to get in close, but that piece of crap Terran suit of yours isn’t going to do any damage to those guns.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I don’t need it to. Look -- that bank is all wired together; they’ve got to be all controlled by the same systems. If I know anything, I know weapons. If I can get close enough, I can take the whole thing out with a pair of wire cutters.”

“I am Groot,” the tree said, and Rocket shrugged in response.

“Okay, maybe you’re not quite as stupid as you look. It’s still a suicide mission, though.”

“If I can get in, I can get out,” Tony said confidently. “Will it make a hole big enough for what you’ve got planned?”

Peter’s hands flew over his computer. “Yyyyyes?” He twisted to look over his shoulder at Gamora.

Apparently, she was in on the plan already, because she nodded. “It will do.”

***

Space seemed a lot bigger when it was just Tony and his suit, without a spaceship around him.

For a moment, he was afraid he was going to flashback to the battle against the Chitauri, but the Xykillian ship looked nothing like the Chitauri mothership, and Peter was a warm voice in his ear this time, offering advice on course correction. It was advice Tony was ignoring -- he couldn’t respond fast enough, even if he’d wanted to, and he had Rocket’s projections loaded into JARVIS’ system, so he didn’t even need them. But it was nice to hear the voice.

It was nicer that Peter hadn’t gone all protective-Alpha on him and tried to insist that Tony stay back out of danger. Even when the Avengers had been a tight team, Tony had seen the Alphas struggling with that particular instinct, from time to time. (Did that mean it was learned behavior rather than instinct? Or were Peter’s instincts skewed and broken from spending so long away from Earth?)

It went almost according to plan. The Xykillians didn’t even notice him until he was so close that most of their guns couldn’t take aim at him anyway. And then he was latched onto the side of the ship. It had some kind of gravity generator that seemed to be set to something just a touch lighter than Earth-normal, so it was like strolling along the floor of a weapons depot, surrounded by cannons the size of radio towers.

All the markings and designs were alien -- ha! -- but Tony had been surrounded by weapon systems since he could walk, and had started building his own by the time he was eight. It didn’t take him long to begin to understand them.

It wasn’t _quite_ as simple to disable them as using a pair of wire cutters, but it was much easier than he’d feared it would be. He supposed they hadn’t really planned for crazy hostiles to land on the ship’s hull and start messing around -- instead, they’d built the controls to be easy to access, presumably for their own repair crews who’d have to come out into the black of space to get to them.

Tony had managed to disable a four-block-long swath of weapons and rig a couple more to implode before those selfsame repair crews came out after him.

Tony’s suit was far more maneuverable than theirs, so he disabled two more cannon-looking towers before launching himself back out into the black. One of them must have been a marksman to rival Hawkeye, though, as he managed to score not one but _two_ hits before Tony got back out of range of their handheld weapons.

“You okay there?” Peter asked, and bless him, he actually sounded worried.

“You focus on your part of the job,” Tony chided. “I’m leaking, but it’s slow. I’ve got plenty of time to get a patch down.”

“Yeah, okay. See you on the other side!” Peter let out a whoop as the _Milano_ came shrieking out of the darkness, using the blind spot Tony had cut out for them. Tony laughed and waved as they went by, and could have sworn he saw Groot looking out the rear hatch window, waving back.

“Sir,” JARVIS said, “the patch is not sealing properly. You are losing oxygen faster than the onboard generator can replace it.”

“Well, that’s not good,” Tony said. “What’s wrong with the patch?”

“It appears that several panels have been punctured and then warped, so that the seal cannot adequately form.”

“Damn.” Tony pulled up his airflow graphs and watched the O2 bar slide slowly but steadily downward. “Will the seal stretch far enough if we jettison the damaged panels?”

“If I deploy two capsules, yes.”

“Do it,” Tony snapped. He was beginning to feel sluggish and lightheaded already; much longer and he wouldn’t be able to think well enough to tell JARVIS what to do.

He drifted a little as the damaged panels flew off. He grimaced as he watched them go -- they were _badly_ warped, and he was glad that whatever it was hadn’t made it through his armor, or he’d be in a world of hurt right now. The O2 bar dropped dramatically, and then stabilized as the seals took hold. Tony held his breath as long as he could, and sighed with relief when the bar started to climb again.

“Good job, JARVIS.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Let’s go see if the Guardians have managed to save the galaxy again -- or at least this star system.”

***

The fight was over by the time Tony made his way back onto the _Milano_ , the Xykillians having adjusted course the instant they realized they were facing the Guardians. They’d been counting on any defenders being unable to get through their wall of firepower, apparently.

“And that is why we don’t work for _salvage rights_ ,” Peter yelled disgustedly over his shoulder as he helped Tony through the hatch. “There goes our bounty.”

“If you’d done it my way,” Gamora shouted back, “they wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere!”

“And then we’d be stuck dealing with prisoners!” Peter groaned. “Dealing with prisoners is the _worst_!”

“You guys have quite the reputation,” Tony said.

“Yeah, well, you save the galaxy a few times and word gets around,” Peter said. “We did blow up Ronan the Accuser in front of all of Xandar.”

Tony grinned and triggered his suit’s release. He tried to step smoothly out, but stumbled over the stretchy airtight seal across his left thigh. “Oh, shit.”

He poked at the seal, as if to confirm that it wasn’t hiding anything else under it. But there was nothing there but Tony’s flight suit. The panels that had been destroyed and subsequently blown had contained storage compartments. Specifically, the storage compartments that held his favorite multitool, his emergency credit card with the only-slightly-stolen galactic units that Rocket had loaded on it, and... his suppressants.

“Okay, that’s...”

“Tony? What’s up?” Peter was standing with one hand half-stretched out, as if he were almost afraid to touch Tony. “Did they get you after all?”

“What? No, I’m a little knocked around but it’s... they got my suppressants, is what they got. And I’m...” The calendar out here was damned hard to figure, what with the constant change of not only time zone but solar system, but JARVIS’ clocks confirmed the sinking feeling in Tony’s stomach. “I’m only a couple of days out from heat.”

“And that’s... bad?” Peter guessed.

“Well, it’s sure as hell not _good_ ,” Tony snapped. He put his hand over his face. “Sorry, I’m. I’m not... I haven’t had an unsuppressed heat in years. Which means it’s going to hit like a ton of bricks.”

Peter frowned and nodded. “Okay, yeah, that sounds rough. What can I do?”

Tony growled. “Don’t. Please. Don’t suddenly come over all condescending Top Alpha on me, okay? I’ve heard all of them. _Havin’ a little trouble there, ‘meggie? Gimme a little spark, ‘meggie._ _Help you out with that problem, ‘meggie?_ Assholes like that are why I went on suppressants in the first place.”

Peter held up his hands in surrender, eyes wide. “Hey, that’s not what I meant, I swear! I just want to help you, that’s all!”

Tony took a breath. Panicking was not going to do him any good. “Sorry, sorry, I’m just... I don’t want to _do_ this.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Peter promised. “There’s a chemist I know who owes me a favor -- well, she owes Gamora a favor, but she’ll talk to us. I bet she can figure out how to make them for you. It’ll be fine.”

***

It was not going to be fine. The chemist had taken samples of Tony’s blood, and swabbed his pheromone glands, and after half a day’s dithering, decided that she could _probably_ replicate Tony’s suppressants, but that it would take her a few days.

By which time it would be far too late.

It wasn’t Peter’s fault. Tony tried to keep that in mind, but he could already feel the edges of his heat creeping in, a prickle around the base of his spine, and it was hard to be civil with anyone, much less the Alpha whose body was ramping up pheromone production in answer to the involuntary signals Tony was sending out.

Not every Alpha smelled good to every Omega or vice versa; that was just bullshit. The whole _point_ of pheromone production -- from an evolutionary standpoint, anyway -- was to find a biologically compatible mate. But damn if Peter didn’t smell _good_. Like a steak hot off the grill, like dark chocolate, like bread fresh from the oven. Tony had wanted him before, but now it was a desperate need.

Which, perversely, made Tony want to dig in his heels and refuse to have anything to do with Peter.

God, he’d forgotten the way his pre-heat hormones made him irritable and contrary. He hated it.

The next night, right on the cusp of full heat, Tony was irritably trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in when someone knocked on the door.

“What?” he snapped.

“It’s me,” came Peter’s voice. “Don’t, uh, don’t open the door, if you don’t want to. I just. I wish... What would help you?”

Tony snorted. “You know you’re the only Alpha in the building. Probably the only one on the _planet_. You don’t have to do a gift display like some... courting bird.” He got up and started pacing.

“I just want you to be okay,” Peter said. “I don’t mean... anything.”

When Tony paced near the door, where Peter’s scent slid through the cracks, that awful prickling eased. He paced the room another few times, but then gave in and slid to the floor and breathed in, deep. He hoped Peter wouldn’t get tired of waiting and leave, and then was mad at himself for hoping it.

But Peter seemed content to just wait, and Tony’s irritation slowly ebbed. “When I presented,” Tony said after a while, “my dad was horrified. Some Alpha was going to take advantage of me and I’d come out of a heat haze to find that I’d signed over the company or the fortune or something else dire. So I swore I’d never let an Alpha have me in heat.”

“Your dad’s a dick, if he cared more about the company than his son,” Peter pointed out. “And I know from shit dads.”

“Yeah, well. I’ve broken that rule exactly three times. The first time was Sunset Bain, and she used my heat to get company secrets out of me. Ruined most of a year’s worth of profits, and humiliated me in the press to boot. I’m just lucky she didn’t get pregnant. The second was Tiberius Stone, and he was a perfect gentleman... until it was over, and he started treating me like one shared heat meant he owned me.”

“Wow, they sound like one hundred percent dicks,” Peter said. “What about the third?”

“That was Pepper. I was with her for a while. It was better for the company if I stayed on suppressants, but we had one mix-up with this crazy month of travel and I ran out at the end of a trip and when I got home I found out my prescription had run out and... Money buys wonders, but suppressants are a controlled substance, you _have_ to have that prescription. So we figured one heat wouldn’t kill anyone.”

“What happened?”

Tony wondered if he’d ever be able to think about Pepper without that ache in his chest. It was smaller than it had been, but still very much present. “She left me,” he said. “Not because of that, but it wasn’t long afterward. I’m not used to heats working out very well for me,” he said.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Peter agreed. His voice came from the same level as Tony’s, as if he were sitting on the floor as well. Tony imagined the two of them, sitting back-to-back with only that door in the way. “I was nine when Yondu kidnapped me. I told you that, right? I hadn’t exactly had much in the way of sex ed. Mostly just what you get from movies, which even I know is pretty bad. And not even romcoms. Mostly I liked action movies. You know the type -- big, tough Alpha saves the day to the adoration of all the Betas, and if there’s an Omega even in the movie, they’re just there as a prize for the Alpha to win. And even at nine I knew that wasn’t right -- Mom was an Omega -- but, well. Kids, right?”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. It was the same as it had been during the fight, Peter’s voice a soothing balm.

And that wasn’t anything to do with Peter being an Alpha. The theories about Alpha Command Voice had been debunked decades ago, and anyway, this wasn’t that. This was just Peter rambling on about every little thing, and the wash of his tone against the jagged edges of Tony’s nerves. It was just... Peter.

“I want you,” he said aloud, somehow surprised.

Peter went silent for a moment. “Is... that the heat talking? Because I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you, too, but not if it’s going to be a problem afterward, because I like you a lot, Tony. I don’t want to take advantage of a shitty situation.”

“I want _you_. Not the Alpha, just... Peter. I wanted you before the fight, before we were interrupted. While I was still on suppressants.” Tony recalled the moment, them stretched out, kissing like teenagers, Tony’s body pulled up against Peter’s... His heart kicked into a higher gear. Yeah, he’d wanted that a lot.

“Okay. That’s... that’s good? We’re on the same page, but I don’t know what to do now. Help me out here,” Peter begged. “I mean, are we still just talking? Because we can totally revisit that thought after your heat is done, but I--”

Tony sighed. He twisted around and reached up to unlock the door and open it. It slid away to show Peter in nearly exactly the position Tony had imagined, half-fallen from the sudden loss of a backrest. “I want you to come in here and fuck me,” Tony said plainly, just in case Peter was still confused. “Now. _Before_ the heat hits. And then stay with me for the heat.”

Peter closed his eyes briefly, then surged forward to kiss Tony, cradling Tony’s head delicately in one hand even as the other curled around Tony’s waist to pull them together. “Oh, god, Tony, _Tony_.”

Peter kissed like he was drowning and only Tony’s mouth could save him. He nuzzled up into it, nipping lightly at Tony’s lips until Tony opened to let him in, and then dove in, tasting every bit of Tony that he could reach, hands clutching at Tony’s shirt and hair as if his life depended on it.

And yet, when Tony pushed gently, Peter let go immediately, backing off with wide eyes and holding up empty hands. “What? Did I hurt you? Too fast?”

“Relax a little,” Tony said. “But let’s get off the floor.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, in the general direction of the bed.

Peter followed the motion and his eyes got impossibly wider, and he nodded fast and hard, like a bobblehead doll. “Yeah, yes, that’s good, that’s definitely-- Let’s do that.” He rolled to his feet and offered Tony a hand up, then began crowding Tony toward the bed, pushing into Tony’s space with a delighted grin that seemed to brighten every time Tony accepted the direction and stepped back.

Tony’s knees hit the edge of the bed and he let himself fall back onto the mattress, pulling Peter with him. Peter landed squarely on top of him, and Tony had a moment to revel in the feel of Peter’s weight pressing down on him before Peter was kissing him again, rolling them to the side to tug at Tony’s shirt.

“I should probably be sorry,” Peter gasped between frantic kisses. “You deserve something romantic and respectful and slow. I know that, but I--”

“If you slow down now I will kill you with my own two hands,” Tony swore. He stripped off his shirt and pulled at Peter’s, fumbling at the catches. “The picnic was romantic and you’ve been nothing but respectful even when I was being an asshole to you, so you’ve got those bases well and truly covered, I promise.”

Peter yanked his shirt off and went to work on his pants. Tony shucked his own pants in the meantime and dug in his small pile of belongings for lube. (It had taken him an unreasonable amount of time in the drugstore on-planet to find lube that would be safe for him to use, the variety of aliens being what they were, but at least everything was well-labeled once he’d gotten the universal translator installed in his glasses. And thank the gods that he liked a little lube to jerk off with, because otherwise they’d have to _stop_ to run out for it, and even just the thought of it made Tony want to growl with impatience.)

When they were finally naked -- which probably only took a couple of minutes but felt like a slow march of hours -- Peter sat back on his heels to look at Tony with something like reverence. “Wow,” he breathed. “You’re beautiful. I mean, I knew you were already, I just--”

Tony resisted the urge to cover the scars on his chest. “Not bad for a beat-up superhero on the wrong side of forty, I guess,” he said. “You’re... definitely fitter than you look when your clothes are on. I mean, damn.”

Peter grinned. “I like to be underestimated. Bad guys think I’m basically a joke, just the spokesman, and then _bam!_ I’m all up in their faces.”

“Bam?” Tony said, amused.

“Bam,” Peter confirmed. “Like this.” He ducked to lick a stripe up Tony’s cock, and that was... ooohhhh that was nice, that was _glorious_.

Tony’s breath sped up and his head tipped as his back arched. Peter hummed into it, and that was _maddening_ but in the _best_ possible way, like the prickles in his spine had finally decided to go somewhere more useful.

Peter’s finger breached his hole then, and when the _fuck_ had Peter taken the lube from him, much less managed to open it and slick up? “Oh, _fuck_...” Tony was forcibly reminded that Peter was, first and foremost, a thief.

Peter lifted his head with a smirk. “Bam,” he said, and laughed at Tony’s expression before going back to what he was doing.

Which was, apparently, driving Tony insane. How the hell did you sneak up on a man’s ass? Tony didn’t know, but that was definitely what Peter was doing; Tony would be rocking into the warm, wet sensation of Peter’s mouth and then out of nowhere would come the shivery lightning strike of fingers brushing over his prostate, or the sweet burn of a fresh stretch.

“I’m ready, come on, now,” Tony demanded, but Peter just hummed again.

“Pretty soon,” he agreed. “Kinda like making you squirm like this.”

“Bastard,” Tony accused, but he couldn’t put any force into it, not when Peter was making him feel like this.

“Uh-huh,” Peter said. “Just for that, I ought to make you wait even longer.”

“Son of a bitch,” Tony cursed, “don’t you dare.”

Peter laughed and didn’t answer. It was anyone’s guess whether that was because he didn’t want to incriminate himself or because his mouth was too full to talk. Tony certainly wasn’t wasting valuable brain cells on figuring it out.

When Peter finally pushed Tony’s knee back and started to line up, Tony felt like he was on fire, hotter than any of his heats had made him. But while it was urgent, it wasn’t a nuisance or a terror or anything remotely bad. It felt _safe_ , with Peter over him and around him, safe in a way no Alpha had ever felt before.

Tony let his eyes fall shut, the better to immerse himself in the sensation of Peter sinking into his body, filling him. It wasn’t a new sensation -- Tony’d done this dozens, maybe hundreds of times -- but it felt different now. The rush of his oncoming heat, the sense of being _cared for_ , the way Peter was whispering nonsense and praise into Tony’s ear...

“Oh, god,” Tony gasped, and curled into Peter again, pressing his face into the curve of Peter’s neck, surrounding himself with that rich, heady scent that meant _Alpha_ , that meant _safety_ , that meant _home_. “Peter!”

“Tony,” Peter responded. He sounded hoarse, _wrecked_ , as if fucking Tony was the best thing that had ever happened to him. “You’re so perfect, so gorgeous. God, I...” He cradled Tony’s skull in one hand, just holding Tony close. “It’s so _good_ ,” he said, a sense of wonder tinging his voice.

“Almost the best sex an Earthling can have,” Tony agreed, laughing shakily. “Compatible and opposite pheromones, right on the verge of a heat.”

Peter slid slowly out, and then rocked back in, a carefully smooth slide that made Tony want to whine with need. “Oh, hell, if heat-sex is better than this, I might die.” He added a hard thrust at the end, a twist of his hips that dragged his dick right across Tony’s prostate.

Tony bucked up in involuntary response, seeking more. “Gonna find out,” he promised. “Want you... Come on, Peter. Want you now, good and hard.”

Peter groaned and shuddered, and complied, slamming into Tony with all the force Tony could want. It only stoked the fire, but at least it felt like it was burning through something now. “More,” he panted. He wriggled a hand between their bodies and grabbed at his own cock, throbbing with the need for sensation.

“That’s it,” Peter said as Tony matched his rhythm. “Come for me, gorgeous, let me see you. I bet you’re even more beautiful when you come.”

The fire caught, then, and washed through Tony’s body like it were flashpaper, a whitehot flare of pleasure that left him gasping for breath. “Peter!” he wailed, grabbing, grasping at Peter’s shoulders, hard enough to bruise.

Peter just moaned and redoubled his efforts until he lost the rhythm entirely, went jerky and stuttering, and then came with a shout that he muffled by pushing his face into Tony’s neck.

Tony gave him a minute or so to enjoy the afterglow, then nudged Peter until he pulled out and rolled over. “Rest up,” Tony said smugly. “You’ve got a busy couple of days ahead.”

Someone pounded on the wall. “We’re all _very touched_ you to bozos finally made it to the horizontal, but some of us are tryin’ to sleep, here!”

Rocket. Tony laughed, helplessly.

Peter snorted and pulled Tony closer. “We... might need to invest in another room. One with better soundproofing.”

Yeah, space was the _best_.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I blame everyone who encouraged this when I complained about having dreamed this ridiculous story.
> 
> The early mention of the [Spartax kidnapping](https://retcon-punch.com/2013/06/13/guardians-of-the-galaxy-3/) and then [Tony and Gamora's hookup](https://lowbrowcomics.com/2015/04/01/gamora-and-tony-stark-hook-up/) is ripped nearly word-for-word out of the comics.
> 
> Did I put an absurd amount of thought into the worldbuilding and biology and consequences thereof for a short PWP story? Of course I did. Am I going to share my notes with you here? Of course I am.
> 
> **A/B/O Worldbuilding Notes:**
> 
>   * Everyone has heats, not just Omegas. An Omega heat can trigger an Alpha’s, however. (The reverse is NOT true.) Unlike in the real world, semen only contains sperm if the person is in heat, so BOTH partners must be in heat for pregnancy to occur.
>   * Beta heats are much milder than either Alpha or Omega heats. Like real-world menstrual cycles, they tend to sync up, but it's a gradual thing, not as immediate as an Omega's effect on an Alpha. (Use of birth control is much less controversial than in the real world, otherwise everyone would be up to their eyeballs in babies all the time. Heat suppressants are a bit more questionable, if only because they’re newer and the side effects are potentially much more severe, which is why they’re strictly controlled.)
>   * No knotting, no self-lubing asses, no mpreg. If the Alpha has been exposed to the Omega for a day or so beforehand and had their own heat triggered then both partners are fertile, but assholes are not vaginas and pregnancy still requires a sperm and egg combination. (Can you tell this is a particular peeve of mine about A/B/O fics?)
>   * There are no rules about who can mate/marry whom with regards to presentation, though it’s largely assumed that Alphas and Omegas will end up together, because...
>   * Alpha-Omega babies (whatever their presentation) tend to be stronger and smarter on the whole than any other combination. It’s generally assumed that the beneficial mutations that push evolution forward come most often in A-O babies.
>   * While it’s not a hard and fast rule, Alphas tend to be larger and Omegas smaller, with Betas filling the gap in between. The personality stereotypes are that Alphas are strongwilled, take-charge, and fiercely combative; while Omegas are easygoing, calm and calming, and nurturing types. This seems to hold up for most, though the nature-vs-nurture argument rages on.
> 

> 
> Oh, god, I can no longer say I don't do A/B/O fics. What even is my life.


End file.
